Penalty killing keeping Flyers out of trouble

PITTSBURGH -- It's nothing special, the Flyers say. Somehow they were just able to score twice this weekend against the best power play in the league.

The Pittsburgh Penguins were without Kris Letang, Paul Martin, Chris Kunitz, Pascal Dupuis and James Neal in both Flyers wins this weekend, yet somehow Pittsburgh has fought through injuries all season long and been successful.

It doesn't take all that much away from Matt Read, who had two shorthanded goals this weekend.

"They've got the No. 1 power play in the league," Read said. "It's just about taking time and space away from them, getting in the right lanes and putting your sticks in the right position. I think our whole penalty-kill unit did a good job this weekend."

The Flyers held the Penguins to 0-for-4 Sunday in Pittsburgh and 0-for-5 Saturday in Philadelphia. It was a big part of both wins against the best team in the Metropolitan Division, which kept the Flyers in playoff position.

"Huge," Wayne Simmonds said. "Those guys did an unbelievable job. Unfortunately we're a team that takes a lot of penalties, but the PK's been the top five or 10 the last three years. Those guys work their butts off every game and they give us a chance to win every night."

Simmonds is right. As good a job as the Flyers did on the penalty kill, they continue putting themselves in situations where they have to do it over and over.

It was interference, roughing, tripping and holding penalties that gave the Penguins a chance to get back into the game after the Flyers had established a three-goal lead in the first period.

Coach Craig Berube isn't giving up his plea to his players to stop taking penalties.

"No," he said. "I keep telling them."

Eventually, it will catch up to the Flyers if they keep marching to the sin bin. The good news for them is that special teams are important this time of year and right now things are going well. At the end of their game, the Flyers' PK ranked ninth in the NHL.

"It gives us momentum, for sure," Berube said. "The guys have done a great job on it. The goaltender, everybody who goes out there, they're doing a real good job. Coaches do a good job of preparing those guys, (Ian) Laperriere and (Joe) Mullen. Special teams, they do a good job of preparing those guys."

It was all just good practice, they say. There was nothing special about the Penguins' power play that the Flyers were able to feast on.

"You just do a good job and you get a break and they're attacking the other way," Berube said. "That's all it was. They just ended up getting a couple 2-on-1s. It's nice when we're doing that and not getting 2-on-1s on our power plays."